Elite Screens: ezFrame AcousticPro Fixed Frame Projector Screen Review-summery

Elite Screens AcousticPro Projector Screen - The Bottom Line

As I see it there are four major aspects to this screens performance: Image, Sound transparency, setup and physical attributes, and finally price. Let's run through them.

Image:

This Elite seems to be a real improvement over the earlier screen surface I reviewed. The black mesh backing and new surface solve the problem of reflected light, even with white walls. There is, as I pointed out, that very slight color shift, but as you can see from the images provided, it is barely detectable, even comparing side by side with the Firehawk. The shift is probably well within the normal differences from one movie to the next in color balance. It is subtle and should be easy to correct for, if you so choose.

Elite claims a gain of 1.0. That seems very believable.

Sound Transparency.

No significant acoustic problems are audible to my ears, although as mentioned, I can no longer hear the highest audible frequencies. Loss of volume, is definitely negligble, just enough to be noticed when the screen is quickly moved out of the sound path.

While listening to a favorite music video, I did find the high end a touch muted, compared to when the screen was out of the way, but it is only noticeable when quickly switched. No way I could walk into the room and tell by sound if the AcousticPro was in front of the speakers or not.

Setup and Operation

As I stated earlier, the setup really is straightforward - (easy to say, when I was just watching it being done). 15 minutes should do it, once the parts are out of the box. Once assembled, the surface appears nice and taut, comparable, no, actually a bit stiffer than that of the Carada Brilliant White surface I use as my primary screen in the testing room. There's not a sign, anywhere, of a wave or wrinkle in the screen surface.

The screen surface is easily cleanable, with a water moistened cotton cloth. (Nice!)

In Conclusion:

It certainly looks like Elite has a very good product in this fixed frame screen with their AcousticPro surface with black mesh material backing. While I am no expert on acoustic screen surfaces (that's the truth), this screen seems to perform very nicely as a video screen, while allowing high quality sound to pass through it from a center channel speaker, or even all three front speakers. There are definitely other acoustic screens with a finer texture to the screen surface, but I really didn't see any issue, from normal seating distances, while viewing at a distance of just beyond nine feet - a reasonable distance for smaller screens such as this 84 inch or maybe even a much larger 106 inches. When everything is considered, pricing becomes an important aspect in determining value, and this Elite is very strong on pricing. While the pricing is still significantly more than non-acoustic screens from elite, most sizes of this screen sell for about the same price as non-acoustic screens from bigger "old-time" brands, and far less than those companies charge for their acoustic screens.

Pricing

Click to Enlarge. So close.

Elite traditionally sells their screens for less than the older, well established names like Da-Lite and Draper. That is just as true for this acoustic screen as with their other surfaces. A quick search online shows the 106 inch version of this screen selling typically for well under $700. By comparison, names like Da-lite will cost you about $1000 or more for their acoustic solutions in a fixed frame.

Click Image to Enlarge

Elite Screens AcousticPro Projector Screen: Pros

• Very low price compared to most major brands
• Easy to assemble
• Nice appearance with beveled black velvet frame
• Any loss of sound quality passing through the screen seems very minimal
• Good color accuracy
• Two year warranty

Elite Screens AcousticPro Projector Screen: Cons

• Screen texture is more visible than on some more expensive micro-perf acoustic screens (although I did not notice during normal viewing)
• Some might like a larger frame (the Elite is about 2.5 inches, larger ones from other brands often are in the 3.5 to 4 inch thick range.
• Less choices of screen sizes than some other brands

Elite Screens AcousticPro Projector Screen: Typical Capabilities

• Offers screens in most common sizes (they do make custom sizes but we did not investigate)
• Very limited loss of audible gain (volume) and high frequencies